THREATS AND RESPONSES: WARNINGS; Few Signs of Less Terror Threat As a Lower Alert Is Considered

Even as the Bush administration considers whether to lower the government's terrorism alert level, American officials said today that there was scant new and specific intelligence to show that the potential threat of another terrorist attack had actually been reduced.

Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland security, said last weekend that the heightened alert level might be lowered in days, as officials assessed intelligence about potential terrorist activity.

Today, officials said that no decision had been made about lowering the color-coded alert from orange, or high risk of a terrorist strike, to yellow, or elevated risk. But they said the alert level would be reviewed again on Thursday.

The level was raised on Feb. 7 to orange, its second-highest category, in response to intelligence indicating that Al Qaeda might be plotting attacks in the United States or overseas for mid-February. The exact place and nature of the threatened attacks were never corroborated, but officials said that most of the reports appeared to be credible. They said they had evidence that strikes might be planned for New York, Washington and the Arabian peninsula.

The major reason that the government has been considering whether to lower the alert level is that some of the intelligence it had received indicated that an attack might be timed to coincide with the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, which ended last Thursday.

But apart from the fact that the pilgrimage has ended, no new intelligence has been collected showing that the threat has subsided, officials said today. Last week, in fact, American officials said that the intelligence suggesting potential attacks was at its most worrisome level since the Sept. 11 attacks. They said they were particularly concerned because the intelligence provided evidence that Qaeda operatives might be moving from planning to actually conducting terrorist operations.